Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled The Joy of Good News was written by Wyn Collier.

One evening, in 1964, the Great Alaska earthquake shocked and writhed for more than four minutes, registering a 9.2 magnitude.

In Anchorage, whole city blocks disappeared, leaving only massive craters and rubble.

Through the dark, terrifying night, news reporter Jeannie Chance stood at her microphone,

passing along messages to desperate people

sitting by their radios. A husband, working in the bush, heard that his wife was alive.

Distraught families heard that their sons on a Boy Scout camping trip were okay. A couple heard

that their children had been found. The radio crackled with line

after line of good news. Pure joy amid the ruin. This must have been something like

what Israel felt when they heard these words from the prophet Isaiah. The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

As they looked over the wasteland of their wrecked lives and grim future,

Isaiah's clear voice brought good news at the very moment when all seemed lost.

God intended to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, to rebuild

the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. In the midst of their terror, the

people heard God's assuring promise, His good news. For us today, it's in Jesus that we hear God's good news. This is what the

word gospel means. Into our fears, pains and failures, he delivers good news, and our distress

gives way to joy.

Today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 through 7.

The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and

release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day

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